“For you, ballerina.”
She accepts them with suspicious eyes. “What gives?”
“Was buying flowers, figured I’d get some for you, too.”
“He wants an excuse to drop cash at Abby’s shop,” Jess teases. Her words put Soph at ease, as she accepts and brings the bouquet to her nose.
“Thank you. They smell good.”
“Welcome.”
When neither Angelo or Eric join us, which means their girls don’t either, I dump the last two bouquets in the sink and turn back to face the group. “Reynolds is all set up. She’s wired into the main system, so any of us can check in whenever.”
“Sweet, thanks.” Kane lifts the empty bottle from the baby’s lips and tosses it onto the table. Lifting the bundle wrapped in a tight blanket, he lays her against his chest and starts patting until she lets out a loud belch. “We gotta talk about this threat. I have zero tolerance for this shit at this point in my life. Exterminate quickly, quietly, and permanently.”
“Kane.” Jess steps forward with sad eyes.
She’s… I guess she’s what we’d consider an innocent. She takes care of business when she has to, but would much rather bring her cop brother in to fix her problems instead of relying on her “security expert” friends, who employ tactics much more permanent and bloodier.
She doesn’t want her man to break the law anymore, but sometimes these things can’t be helped.
“Sorry, Blondie. We gotta do what we gotta do. Someone’s watching, so we gotta have it dealt with. We’re not just gonna sit here and wait to be fucked up.”
“We could bring Alex in?” she suggests with pleading eyes. The cops.Typical.“It doesn’t have to be your way.”
“What do we tell him, babe?” He pats the baby’s back with heavy thumps. “Someone is graffitiing over my graffiti? That’s not good enough.”
“So what areyougonna do? Stand on the lookout with a big sign that says ‘Here I am, come get me’?”
“Well, that would be dumb,” Jay snickers. “Wanna lose your head,other twin? Or do you wanna play smart?” He lifts the blonde baby with confident hands, and burps her against his chest. “We find him, we go to him, we end him. There won’t be any standing in the open with a target on our chests.”
“Yougoto them?” Jess turns back to Kane, clutching her belly as though every movement hurts. “Wejusthad our babies! This fucking week. And now you’re saying you’re going away? We haven’t been married a week, and you’re gonna break my heart already?”
“No.” His dark eyes somehow darken.
He adopts this hardness, this machine-like personality, when it comes to work. Before her, he was just a soldier who did his job with precision and no emotion. But she makes him human. And being human when you have a target on your head is dangerous.
“I dunno, Blondie. We haven’t figured out the details yet, so you need to stop freaking out.” He reaches out with one hand and gently pulls her closer. He wraps one arm around her hips, and is careful not to hurt her incision when he presses a kiss to her stomach. “We don’t freak until we have reason to freak. We know something is going down, so we’re already a step ahead. Sophia is doing whatever the fuck Sophia does, and soon, we’ll have a clearer picture. Then we make our decisions.”
“Thenyou leave me and the girls.” Her eyes fill with tears. “You’re relegating me to the kitchen. Marrying me, giving me babies, changing my whole world, and then you think you get to skip out when I need you the most.”
“I’m not skipping out,” he snaps. “I’m protecting.”
“Funny.” She angrily swipes a palm over her cheek to collect fallen tears. “Because it looks like you can’t give away your old life for us. I gave up mine. I haven’t been to work in a month. I won’t go back for a long time. I was supposed to go into partnership with Jules at the firm, but every time I get close, something happens, and I have to take off more time. I gave up my body. I gave up my name. I don’t know hownotto cry these days, and I’m so fucking tired, I want to rip my hair out. Oh!” She throws her hand in the air, but cries out when she hurts herself. “But don’t worry about tearing my hair out, because it’sfallingout all on its own. The baby hormones are fucking me up hard. Somehow, my vagina hurts, even though they didn’t even come out that way. My boobs are stretched to capacity and hurt so bad, even though I’m not even using them. And now Bishop boys are holding my babies, and making it look so fucking easy when it’snot!”
Jessie often explodes in her man’s face. It’s kind of the price he pays for falling in love with a Louboutin princess, but never does she cry with real tears in her eyes, or staples in her stomach.
Kane stands and walks away from her, but only to come to me. With gentle hands, he places Chicken – or Nugget – into my arms, then turns back to a quietly falling apart Jess.
My heart comes to a dead standstill while this tiny human sleeps against my chest. She has no clue who I am. She doesn’t know that the hands that hold her have killed men. She doesn’t know that the chest she rests against has been torn up from bullets and knives.
She’s so breakable, and no one has any clue that I have no fucking idea what to do.
“I’m not going anywhere, Blondie. I promise. And there’s nothing on this planet I wouldn’t give up for you and the girls. Not a fucking thing.” Kane runs his hands along her arms and down to her hands. “Shit is hard for you right now, baby. You’re tired, you’re sore, and like you said, the hormones are kicking your ass. I want to make this easier on you, I’m doing the best I can. But you need to tell me how to do better.” He pulls her against his chest and presses a kiss to her messy hair. “Tell me what to do to make it easier.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is a cry and a whine in one. “I don’t know how to make it feel better.”
“There’s a massive hormone dump around now,” Soph says. She taps at her computer, apparently researching postpartum hormones. “Milk’s coming in, hormones are pumping through her body, but now she’s only one person again, not three. She needs to rest. And to hold the babies.”